Helping Kids Think Outside the Lines

This morning my Seeing Eye dog Whitney and I take off for Union Station to head to the Chicago suburbs. It’s Disability Awareness Week at Wilmot Elementary School in Deerfield, and we’re slated to give a presentation to eight- and nine-year-olds. The third graders are studying Helen Keller, and you can bet I’ll be publishing a blog post in a few days to let you in on what questions they ask!

Today, however, I’m treating you to a guest post by Patty O’Machel, a writer, special needs advocate and the mom behind the Disability Awareness Week idea at Wilmot Elementary. Patty’s blog Parenting Outside The Lines collects and shares the stories of parents all over the world who are raising children with special needs, and her guest post today lets you in on another “Outside the Lines” project she launched a few months ago.

by Patty O’Machel

Ability awareness is a passion project of mine. This is where my heart lies, as the mother of a little girl with cerebral palsy and as an advocate for change and acceptance. I want to share Ability Awareness programs in schools all over the country and help to change perceptions in kids of all ages.

And so, early in August, I launched a new business called Educating Outside the Lines. This project stems from my core belief that “kids with disabilities are just kids.” I want the world to see what I see. I want them to see ability.

The overall objective of bringing ability awareness programming into the school system is to break down the barriers between children with and without disabilities, and to help erase the fear of differences.

Every kid with a disability is someone’s child, someone’s classmate or someone’s friend, and today’s schools include children with all types of disabilities or challenges. Every child who has a classmate or friend who is physically or developmentally challenged learns a lesson in acceptance and understanding that they will take with them into adulthood.

Schools are instrumental in breaking down barriers, fears and misunderstanding about disabilities. By celebrating and enlightening kids, school becomes the change agent the world needs to include and accept children with disabilities in every aspect of life.

I have been able to develop my Educating Outside the Lines program into several areas of focus, from assembly speeches to grade-level specific programming. With the help of many partners in the disability world, my passion has come to fruition.

A Chicago-based firm called Small Forces creates short documentaries that highlight the work of grass roots organizations and people making their communities better. As part of a grant project, Small Forces worked with Educating Outside the Lines to produce a video that completely encapsulates the impact of the program. The video launched on The Mighty Parents Facebook page on Friday, August 3, 2018 and was viewed over 18,400 times in its first five days online. The beauty of the short video is in the voices of children with disabilities speaking from their own perspective about what this kind of education means to them personally.

I am so proud of this video and of the voices of the kids. The show stopper is Ahalya Lettenberger, an amazing example of “abilities” in every aspect of her life. While her disability doesn’t allow her to walk independently for long distances, she is a 16-year-old girl on the move. She competes internationally in paratriathlons, she is an above average student in high school, and is on her schools’ swim team. In the video, Ahalya speaks of her experiences with peers not always understanding her disability, and she shares her message with school-aged kids about how to fight back when life gets hard, and to achieve and strive for your own personal goals. Her message is of strength, acceptance and ability.

The video also highlights a 16-year-old high school hockey player with dyslexia who speaks about his experience with a hidden disability, and his peers’ misunderstanding of what he really must conquer each day sitting next to them in class. My 13-year-old daughter uses a wheelchair to get around her junior high, and she’s in the video, too. She speaks about her overall feelings of invisibility with her peers, and about the misconceptions about the true accessibility of her school.

Prosthetic legs, wheelchairs, and hidden disabilities can often be scary to kids. Our Educating Outside the Lines program lets kids experience these things hands-on and serves to demystify the differences. It erases isolation. It combats bullying. It stifles the urge to stare and exclude. It bridges the gap between fear and understanding, and there is nothing more powerful than that to teach our children.

I am so excited to get my business launched, and praying that our web site and video get noticed by parents, teachers and administrators across the country to help them understand the importance of ability acceptance programs in schools. Please take a look at our new Educating Outside the Lines web site and by all means feel free to email me at pattyomachel[at]gmail.com for more information on ways to bring ability awareness programming to your schools.